Phase Genomics Receives $3.9 Million through Two New Grants to Advance Human Health Diagnostics

The grants from two NIH Institutes fund the development of inexpensive, high-throughput cytogenomic methods for detecting chromosomal aberrations in humans

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Phase Genomics, Inc., the biotech leader providing proximity-ligation solutions for the genomics community, announced today the receipt of two NIH grants totaling $3.9M. The funds will be utilized to develop new, highly-scalable methods for detecting chromosomal rearrangements in diverse human samples. The adaptation of high-throughput proximity ligation (Hi-C) technology to cytogenomics promises to bring significant improvements to both research and clinical efforts in fertility, cancer, and genetic disorders.

The pair of three-year grants were awarded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

“Over the last few years, we have witnessed our technology fundamentally impact several fields of genomic research,” said Dr. Ivan Liachko, CEO and Co-founder of Phase Genomics, “Applying the power of this method to human health will lead to an improved understanding of genome dynamics and related disease states. The NIH funding gives us the opportunity to transform this method’s potential into clinical reality.”

The two FastTrack SBIR grants provide Phase Genomics funding for the development of proximity-ligation-based karyotyping methods. The funding from NICHD will support applications in the field of fertility and reproductive genetics, while the grant from NHGRI will fund development in the field of constitutional chromosomal aberrations. The company seeks to develop these methods into transformative diagnostic applications within the growing cytogenetics market (estimated to reach $3.8B by 2025).

“The unique property of proximity ligation methods, such as Hi-C, to capture large chromosomal rearrangements using Illumina sequencing solves an important bottleneck in the analysis of genome structure,” said Dr. Gary Schroth, VP of Genomics Development and Distinguished Scientist at Illumina. “This technology promises to bring improvements in both quality and throughput of current cytogenetic applications, and we are excited to see it come to market.”

Today’s funding announcement doubles the amount of lifetime grant funding awarded to Phase Genomics. To date, the company had already received $3.5 million in grant funding to develop proximity-ligation-based methods for microbiome discovery and antibiotic resistance tracking from the NIH, Department of Energy, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Phase Genomics is also funded by revenue from sales of its proximity ligation kits, scientific services, and computational analysis. Investors in Phase Genomics include Congruent Ventures, Hemi Ventures, WRF Capital, and Sahsen Ventures.

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ABOUT PHASE GENOMICS – Phase Genomics applies Hi-C and other proximity-ligation methods to enable chromosome-scale genome assembly, metagenomic deconvolution, as well as analysis of structural genomic variation and genome architecture. They offer a comprehensive portfolio of laboratory and computational services and products as well as industry-leading genome and metagenome assembly and analysis software. Based in Seattle, WA, the company was founded in 2015. The company’s mission is to empower scientists with genomic tools that accelerate breakthrough discoveries.